These days, more and more successful entrepreneurs are choosing to base their businesses at home to help reduce the often-unnecessary costs of business premises. However, just because you’re working from the relative security of your home address, you will still need to ensure you have adequate insurance to protect both you and your firm.
Whether you’re looking to start up a company from your house – or are already well down the path of running a home-based firm – below are some of the main types of insurance cover you need to invest in. Note – all businesses are different so you should seek professional advice on the types and extent of cover your particular firm might need.
Professional liability insurance
It matters not that you’re working from home – if you’re providing any kind of professional service to clients, you need to ensure you have liability insurance to cover you in the event of failing to deliver, potential negligence claims, etc. You should note, professional liability is a very specific type of cover that doesn’t feature in most typical insurance packages, so you should check what any particular service covers and make sure it fits your firm and what you do.
Business property insurance
If you’re running a company from home, you will typically have invested in a range of business-specific equipment – anything from printers to computers, furniture, phones, etc. While some home insurance packages will cover these items for damage, theft or loss, you should read the small print carefully to check whether you need the additional cover afforded by specific business property insurance.
Standard liability insurance
If a friend or family member visits your home and takes a fall or suffers a similar accident, it’s fairly unlikely they’ll raise a damage claim against you – however, the same most definitely cannot be said of clients or other business-oriented visitors. You shouldn’t just assume your home insurance will cover you for this type of accident (most won’t). Instead, you should take out liability insurance for your business to cover any potential problems (for example, someone injuring themselves when delivering a business item to your home).
Business vehicle insurance
In the majority of cases, personal car insurance will not cover you if you use your car for business use (i.e. delivering or picking up goods from clients). Rather, you’ll need to invest in specific business auto insurance to be covered. This is especially important if you have vehicles that are used purely for the benefit of your company. For example, if you have a small-time lawn care business, then you should get the needed type of landscaping business insurance for your commercial automobiles.
Product liability insurance
As mentioned above, all businesses vary from one another, however, if your firm provides goods or services to other firms or clients, you will need to ensure you have full product liability cover. This type of insurance will protect you from any potential action taken against your firm as a result of damages caused by faulty goods or services your company might supply. It offers protection against any claims relating to the design, manufacture or supply of your goods.
